Sky After Dark (SAD) host and regular Murdoch ‘commentator’ and ‘columnist’ Sharri Markson has claimed – in a bizarre YouTube rant – that “the Newspoll(s) are wrong.”
“Tonight I’m going to tell you how the polls you’re reading in the news are wrong when it comes to this federal election and what’s really going on here?” Markson states in the video.
Markson continues:
“Most national polls have been showing Labor ahead and some have even pointed to majority government for Labor. But this is a fantasy.
“Now you need to remember that the polls are simply a national survey of around 1,300 or so voters. It’s like a thumb in the wind to see the national mood.
“Because this, more than any other, is a hyper-localised election. It doesn’t matter what the national opinion is from from a thousand or so voters out of 18 million registered voters.
“It maters how the voters in the seats that are in play will vote. And the Liberals are polling around 600 people in individual seats. Labor would be doing the same.
“So you look at 600 voters per seat compared to a thousand people nationally.
“And when you look at the results from this, there’s no question Peter Dutton is absolutely in the game.
“So, Dutton they’re saying that their private polling is different and reflects a different outcome to the published [Newspoll] polls.
“It’s also what Nationals leader David Littleproud said in an interview last week as well.
“This is an important reminder that the narrative suggested by the national polling that you keep reading about that it’s impossible for the coalition to win and that Labor will form a majority government. This is in accurate.
“It’s why I’ve spent the time digging into [the] difference between the published polling and the internal research to bring you this information, because it is crucial.
“Now, here’s something else. It’s also worth keeping in mind that pollsters behind Newspoll are Pyxis Polling and they do the research and polling for the Labor Party.
“Now. I’m not saying Newspoll’s are inaccurate. I’m just saying it’s worth keeping this in mind, that the pollsters behind it are being paid by Labor. Probably millions of dollars,” Markson concluded.
Markson did not disclose that Newspoll was founded by her own boss at SAD, Rupert Murdoch nor did she offer any supporting evidence to support her theory that ‘Labor is probably paying millions of dollars’ to Newspoll. No receipts of such – evidence – was broadcast.
They are Murdoch’s own, effectively, “in-house” News Corporation’s polling of voters. Now, such polling isn’t showing what SAD commentators hoped said polls would show, the polling is now, suddenly, ‘rigged’ and doesn’t reflect voters’ views.
This is the same poll Sky News and Murdoch-owned newspapers The Australian, Herald Sun, The Daily Telegraph, The Mercury, Advertiser, Courier-Mail and regional newspapers use as their own in-house polling company.
According to SAD commentators, when a Newspoll shows the coalition leading it is ‘roughly accurate’, but when it shows Labor leading, the Newspoll – from the same, Murdoch-founded, polling company is now, not on the mark? So, is a Newspoll is only partially accurate if it shows the coalition leading the polls? Seems that way.
Newspoll, the polling company, until May 2015, was a market research and polling company, part-owned – and founded by Murdoch’s own News Corp Australia.
In August 2023, the contract to administer Newspoll was granted to Pyxis Polling & Insights.
Sharri Markson is a journalist and commentator for Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers and SAD.
– With thanks to @strangerous.bsky.social.
The video in this article is from @strangerous.bsky.social YouTube channel which you can find here.
